WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced a mandatory recall of all rat poisons marketed under the brand names Bye-Bye-Ben, Ratageddon, Vermin-celli and Dead Rat Walking after discovering that the active ingredient (skullencrossbonium) had been replaced by high levels of vitamins, minerals and possibly steroids. “Over the last three weeks there have over 10,000 reported cases of rats eating one of these poison products and becoming faster, stronger and bulked like little gray Hulk Hogans,” said Dr. Alphonse Zentmen, Director of Poisons and Stomach Viruses at the FDA.
The problem was first discovered in New York City when subway workers spreading chunks of poison were bowled over by unusually large rats that ran off with the bags down the tracks, dancing on the third rail and nearly derailing the 9:15 to Manhattan. Samples were sent to Washington where Dr. Zentmen discovered enough vitamins in one serving of Dead Rat Walking that he renamed it “Centrum Rodent.” Zentmen issued an immediate recall of all products to ward off what he called “an epidemic of giant rats the likes of which haven’t been seen since the cheese packaging industry finally switched from paper to plastic.”
A spokesperson for the only supplier of skullencrossbonium in the U.S., Wow Chemicals, blames the mix-up on college students hired as summer replacements who were unable to read and differentiate the labels on bags marked “poison” and “bottled water additives.” “We haven’t been able to get good help since we got busted for hiring undocumented workers,” explained the spokesperson. When asked what consumers should use to kill the vermin until the products containing rat poison are back on the shelves, Dr. Zentmen of the FDA replied, “Tomatoes.”